Auto-detect 'away' feature for chat

The messages feature is tough to manage in a busy office. I'm the only key contact for online chat. And I have various other duties.

I'm often 'popping up' from my computer and forgetting to turn off chat. This is causing constant frustration to those seeking quick answers.

I know that other like propgams have an 'auto-away' type feature that detects when your computer is dormant for 2 - 3 minutes. If so it will automatically indicate that you are away and defaults to an email response. Of course it would be great for the feature to detect when you are back 'in-use' and switch back to live chat.

I'd second this idea, I think it's really necessary. Either that it auto-reverts to the Offline message, or if there is no engagement with the user from our end (e.g. if I'm away from PC answering a staff question) it sends an automated answer within X minutes, so that the end user doesn't feel ignored.

This is very, very useful. My team works on a different timezone than most of our customers and they like to sleep once in a while, so having something that automatically deals with the situation when no one responds for a few minutes would be hugely helpful.

It would be great if the system would automatically set the chat rep as away after a certain amount of inactivity (like 15min). This would help for someone who forgets to go away and leaves their desk to ensure they don't get a chat.

I totally agree. We are a small organization and only have one individual managing the chat however he has many other duties that he attends to. He is getting pulled away from his computer periodically through the day and forgets to turn off his availability. Due to this chats are lingering out in the black hole of chat and it's creating a bad customer experience.

This feature is also sorely needed if you are using a chatbot on your website and would like to automatically direct visitors to a sales rep that is available. Or alternatively, provide a message that everybody is away at the moment.

Agreed. We've had a few clients ask about this feature. An auto-timeout when the agent it routes to doesn't reply within X minutes would solve. Alternatively, it could set agents to away as Casper suggests.